


A New Era

by Tenthousandstoriesandaghost



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:15:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26549596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tenthousandstoriesandaghost/pseuds/Tenthousandstoriesandaghost
Summary: When Reggie was 17 one of his bestfriends had come out as gay. While none of the boys had cared it was a different time where being accepted for who you were was far more difficult than it had any right to be. 25 years later Reggie was still 17, but now he could see how much easier it was for Alex when discussing boys and he was more confident now that he knew should he ever have to come out to anyone else they wouldn’t treat him any differently. Now, in 2020, Reggie starts questioning his feelings for a fellow bandmate while not wanting to run the risk of ruining anything that may be there.
Relationships: Alex/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Luke Patterson/Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 151





	A New Era

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all, this chapter is the shortest of them all as I sort of used it as a way to start the story more so than to further the plot. Nonetheless I hope you like it! Also I like the idea of the Molina's house as being Alex's so I'm just gonna run with it because I'm gonna dig a little deeper into that later on. Anyway, story!

When Reggie was 17 one of his bestfriends had come out as gay. While none of the boys had cared it was a different time where being accepted for who you were was far more difficult than it had any right to be. 25 years later Reggie was still 17, but now he could see how much easier it was for Alex when discussing boys and he was more confident now that he knew should he ever have to come out to anyone else they wouldn’t treat him any differently. He had been in the best mood Reggie had ever seen when Julie had informed him that gay marriage was now legal; even though Reggie was pretty certain ghosts couldn’t get married straight or otherwise. 

At first Reggie didn’t entirely mind 2020 as a ghost. It was loud and bright and full of new music that Julie got to introduce to the boys; and while he had yet to see his parents deep down he knew that even if he  _ did  _ know where to find them he wouldn’t visit them the same way Luke visited Emily and Mitch. However as the novelty of being a ghost wore off the negatives came crashing in. The way that they had to watch Julie slowly catch up to them in physical age and know that she would one day surpass them, how they couldn’t eat and yet they still craved food, and while Reggie loved the boys and Julie he was a very sociable person and he wanted to go out and meet people. Make new friends. And he simply didn’t have Alex’s luck when it came to crashing into cute new ghosts that would teach you modern slang.

“Hey Reg,” Julie said, climbing up onto the loft where he had been laying and trying to twirl a pen. “Have you seen Luke? He was supposed to meet me here fifteen minutes ago and I can’t exactly text him asking for an update.”

Reggie  _ did  _ know where Luke was. He was always disappearing at random times to go visit his parents and he would always come back in a more sombre mood. Julie didn’t need to know how messy Luke’s life had been and so he sat up and shook his head. “No idea. Probably off playing guitar at the beach. He likes when people can hear him even if he doesn’t get recognition for it.” 

Julie raised an eyebrow and her lips curved into a small smile. “That’s really sweet of him. But we really do need to practice.” 

“I’m sure he’ll be back soon. In the meantime there’s still a few sayings I’m not entirely sure I get-”

“-Is this about deep dish again?” She asked taking a seat next to him, and he nodded enthusiastically. Julie laughed and started going over it along with more modern terms that Reggie was certain he would never be able to use correctly. Julie had been wearing a cropped red hoodie but she had tossed aside around the same time she was trying to teach him how to use “vibe check.” He was about to ask a question but was promptly side tracked as Luke appeared sitting next to him. 

“Julie I am so sorry,” he said immediately, which is more than what he ever said to Reggie when he was late for hanging out with him. “I lost track of time.”

“It’s okay, but we have to work hard to make up time,” She threw her hoodie back on and started climbing down the ladder. “ I don’t want this to be embarrassing because I still have to attend this school after and I don’t want people to know me as the girl who played one good song and then choked.” 

“You won’t be,” Luke promised.

“How could you with us in the band?” Reggie added and Luke threw a casual smile his way and Julie stared at him in a way that meant she was trying, and succeeding, at concealing her amusement. 

The three of them worked on the song for a while, although they couldn’t rehearse the entire song as Alex was still out with Willie, doing god knows what. This of course, meant that Luke was singing random songs he had learnt recently and Julie would add in some piano to match, and Reggie found himself staring.

It wasn’t an unusual or a new development. He used to regularly sit and watch families as a child. Whenever the voices started getting loud he would sneak out of the house and sit on the beach and watch the families all hang out together and imagine him amongst them. He enjoyed watching people and figuring them out, although he had never been great at it because he usually added in his own storyline to them which then meant he had his own story that never quite lined up with the truth. This was hardly an issue for the most part as the only people he watched were beach visitors whom he would never see again. It was the fact that he found himself watching Luke that was unusual. 

He thought it may have something to do with the fact that he had missed him, because the dark room had only felt like an hour and he doesn’t recall speaking. Which would mean that he had gone through 25 years of uncomfortable silence as Alex cried. It would make sense if it weren’t for the fact that he didn’t look at Alex the same way. 

Sometimes he wanted to ask Alex or Julie their opinion but didn’t know how to phrase it. How did one ask their bandmates why he felt drawn to looking at someone in particular? There wasn’t a single scenario where he could imagine asking and not feeling uncomfortable.

“This is insane.” Luke said abruptly. “Listen to this-” he played a few chords and then looked up at Julie. “We could add this onto the song we were working on yesterday.” 

“You guys had been working on a song?” Reggie looked between them. “When?”

Julie stretched out her arms. “Last night, Flynn had been texting me ideas she had and asked me to consider them so Luke and I discussed it and came up with a chorus.” She looked immensely pleased with the two of them and Reggie wondered where he had been during all this. 

Probably asleep.

“Oh, mood.” 

“Not how you use it.” 

“Was I at least close?”

Julie tilted her head. “I guess.”

Reggie grinned and turned to high five Luke, who was smiling as well and  _ oh.  _ Luke’s hair had become a mess and Reggie had a sudden twist in his chest and he went back to his guitar to avoid eye contact. The other two didn’t seem to notice and instead went back to their instruments as well, only for Alex to appear in the garage a minute later, he was smiling happily which meant that whatever he had gone to do with Willie had put him in an unusually good mood. 

Alex had come out to Reggie, Bobby, and Luke about a month before he had to his family, almost in this exact spot 25 years ago. Reggie had had no problem with it then and he had no problem with it now. He liked girls, he knew that, but he also remembered how he would talk about boys. Usually trying to avoid pronouns and with shifting eyes but happily. He would talk about them the same ways Luke or Bobby would talk about girls, albeit with a little less confidence. But the thing was that Reggie could see where Alex was coming from with boys. He understood it and knew how he felt but he had brushed it off as, whatever it was that teenage boys thought of their friends. But recently Julie had spoken openly about all sorts of movies and books and music, along with things that were normalized such as the LGBTQ+ community. 

Reggie looked briefly over at Luke and caught his eye. They grinned at each other and  _ yeah,  _ maybe he should have a talk with Julie and Alex after all. 


End file.
